Heather, I know how you feel, I am a midwife and I work at a hospital as
the breastfeeding educator, we have several L.C.'s on staff who were not
interested in the position when it was created 8 months ago. I am very
passionate about breastfeeding, and am sitting the exam myself this year.
I always intoduce myself as the 'breastfeeding midwife' and explain that I
am preparing to become a Lactation Consultant.
 The difficulty is, my role requires me to particpate in other groups both
within the hospital and in the community, I am always careful to identify
that I am not yet an IBCLC. I have had problems with the lactation
consultant who works for our nearest child health clinic. She asked me to
identify how I saw myself, I replied 'a breastfeeding expert'. She replied
that only a lactation consultant is a breastfeeding expert, and I
shouldn't be presenting myself as such. I would argue that while I feel
that becoming a IBCLC is extremely worthwhile(I wouldn't be spending so
much of my precious free time on preparing for the exam if I didn't) I
believe that I am a breastfeeding expert with an excellent knowledge base,
as are many of my midwife colleagues who are not L.C.'s.
Having said that, I do believe we need to have a professional lactation
organisation and standard such as IBCLC so that mothers can be assured
they are accessing current and accurate information from a suitably
trained health professional.
Margaret Wendt RN RM BHSc GradCertCCAH IBCLCE candidate

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